You've found an online interview of a Digital Strategist that is answering 21 questions that most people appreciate. Its four questions looking at the Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How of a Digital Strategist works.

We're doing a Question and Answer with a local minneapolis digital strategist, who is answering questions. By the end, our goal is that you have a firmer understanding of what these online strategists do

Who are you? Can you tell me a bit about yourself?

Thanks for the interview, and for having me. My name is Jake Goss-Kuehn and I'm the lead Digital Strategist Consultant at the Web Strategy Viking digital agency, the host of the Digital Strategist Podcast, the head of the digital strategist academy, and work with business owners and digital marketers wanting to get more results from Online from what they define.

What is a Digital Strategist Consultant?

Great question. A digital strategists is a key team member that is able to use the company's long term goals to set and hit key performance indicators and communicate this to the executive stakeholders. They are usually ex-chief technology officers, business owners, consultants, or someone with the ability to prioritize and see things from a 50,000 sq foot view.

But they go by many names such as a Search Engine Optimization Consultant, Lead Acqusition Specialist, or a Director of Digital Marketing

Its a up and coming industry, where its expected to grow by 17% this year and there is a shortage of people this year with these skill set. You can check the Beauru of Labor Statistics.

What does work for a Digital Strategist look like?

Generally or Personally? (Whatever you're comfortable with)

Thanks. My day with a client looks like a long-term relationship with the goal of solving any issues to grow their business and hitting their their main key performance indicator.

For example, one client makes websites but wants to sell more than one a month. He makes $10,000 for a wordpress website, so we realized that over 200 people locally are trying to search for him.

He shared with me that he gets maybe 1 sale for every 300 website visitors to his website, but they're usually people that know him or was a social media visitor.

You use Google right? To search for businessess and answer your questions?

(Yes. I looked up the place for this Caribou.)

We found out that over 300 people are typing in phrases like WordPress Web Design in Minneapolis, with 40 people typing in that word-for-word. We also found out that before I started working on it, it wasn't hard to add 300 new eyes to his business.

So he is getting more than a 300 to 1 conversion rate, and hes getting 300 people to see his business's website. Hes likely doing one or two extra sales per month, as we're still in great terms.

What types of Digital Strategists jobs are there?

As I touched earlier, there are different roles. Theres people whose role is just to create leads for the company sales teams, or to be the leadership for a smaller company's marketing team. Startups and SaaS companies are trying to hire Search Engine Optimization consultants like crazy, because they know that their target market needs their services, and SEO for SaaS companies works well with their business model.

A specialist with an overview of digital strategy might mean a SEO consultant that has worked with other forms of digital marketing.

But here are a few other skillsets they need to have for a big picture of digital marketing: Search Engine Optimization, Link Outreach, Influencer Marketing, Content strategy, web design, copywriting, social media, lead acqusition, email outreach, cold and warm sales management, and marketing leadership.

There is almost always a need for any digital marketer with a project management background. I'm yet to see meet someone that is an SEO with a PMP – the project management professional certificate for a digital marketer is incredible. That is the outcome for our digital strategy academt, by the way.